Thursday, March 29, 2007

I'm a little behind on blog reading, but Medieval Woman asked me if anyone has said anything about another blogger meet-up at K'zoo. If no one is already trying to organize one, I'm happy to do it again, but only if you all put in pre-orders for my book at the book exhibition.

Tehee! Just kidding on that last bit.

Seriously, though, two questions: 1) Has anyone started organizing this yet? And 2) If not, do you want to start thinking about it now?

UPDATE: OK, there's some stirring of interest in thinking about this now, and I'm happy to be the organizer again. First things first: Who's going to be there and who's interested? When would you like to meet up? Last year we did it late afternoon/early evening on Thursday, I think, and that conflicted with a least one group of people who always have a meeting then. (Oy, I should look this up. I will later.) Anyway, because of that, someone suggested that this year we think about a breakfast meeting. How do you feel about a breakfast meeting?

I'm pretty down with anything - the only thing I have to do is chair a panel at 10am on Saturday (did you want those kinds of preferences??) - I hadn't started to organize anything - would you mind being the go-to medievalist for a meet-up? :)

I'm up for it! And breakfast works for me - though do you mean on or off campus? (Because breakfast on campus is so damn early...) I usually blow off the plenaries and that actually seems to be a relatively conflict-free time.

Of course, I may have to rescind this statement if I'm still finishing my paper... :-P

I'm not sure yet what I mean by "breakfast" meeting -- I think we can work out details later. But New Kid's playing hooky from the plenaries is partly what I had in mind, though it could start earlier.

Breakfast is fine with me. Since my panel's Thursday morning, I'm available as heck the rest of the time, barring any panel's I might want to see. Like the New Kid, I do tend to skip the plenary talks....

I think that a late afternoon event would work well -- though I know I've got a 3.30 panel on Saturday, and don't know how long that would go. I'll be gone on Sunday (driving back to New York)...I'd also be up for a breakfast meet-up, as I've yet to make any (and I don't think I've ever gone to a plenary, now that I think of it...)...

I like the idea of meeting during a plenary. Since a fair number of people don't arrive until during the day Thursday, maybe Friday morning? That way we would at least know each other well enough to nod "hello" during the rest of the conference. Best,Mike Drout

Yeah, I think Friday breakfast is a great idea (speaking selfishly, I present Saturday afternoon so should be relatively stress-free still on Friday morning!). And I agree that more people are there by Friday. Sunday morning is bad, I think - if I'm actually there (sometimes I duck out early on Sunday to get a decent flight), I like actually to go to sessions because so many people don't on Sunday morning! I'd prefer breakfast to late Saturday - I'll probably be fairly fried by then, which might make me entertainingly-punchy company, but might mean that I just clutch a drink and stare about me inanely... (though I realize that this is again a self-absorbed reason...)

Friday breakfast is out for me, I already have a meeting set up. But Saturday breakfast works, and no one need miss a plenary--yeah, like I've been to one in years. Not nearly enough coffee to listen to a talk at that time of day...plenaries should be at night, and open the book stall earlier!

Friday morning works for me, but be prepared to hear how lame I was on Thursday night -- speaking of which, I'm hoping some of my friends will be around to pick me up, drag me to a place with alcohol, and mop up the bloodstains on the way out (not that anyone will come to the actual panel, as it's Thursday night!)

About She

...is the pseudonym of an academic who works at a regional public university in a medium sized town that she affectionately calls Rust Belt. Dr. Virago is a medievalist, a humanist, and a professor of literature. She also sometimes runs marathons. She can be reached at drvirago2 [at] gmail [dot] com.
She now blogs at Quod She 2.0 at http://quodshe.wordpress.com